


An American Mayor

by lzclotho



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cursed Storybrooke, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lzclotho/pseuds/lzclotho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's year 28. Emma Swan has tracked down Neal Cassidy and ends up chasing August Booth on his motorcycle all the way to Storybrooke, where Emma uses her Bug to prevent August from running down Henry Mills in the streets. This action brings her face-to-face with the boy's mother, and the town mayor, Regina Mills. Regina insists on providing hospitality for the woman who saved her son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An American Mayor

**Author's Note:**

> Back for another Swan Queen Week, I went back to the "beginning" of my previous movie-based fic "An American Mayor" and realized I brought Emma into town under different circumstances (which meets day 4's Canon Divergence AU criteria) AND that this first meeting could definitely fulfill day 1's Meet-Cute AU criteria. So I'm posting the two-scene beginning here. I will probably finish the rest (about half of it is already written anyway) at some point in the future, but this is a nice standalone, I think. I hope you enjoy.

_New York in late summer sucks_ , Emma Swan thought, pulling her hair off her nape again and redoing her hair in its ponytail. The streets all smelled of carbon monoxide and gasoline, and the traffic never stopped. ****

But she was close to a breakthrough. Neal Cassidy’s apartment was in the building across the street. She could see him through the window with her binoculars, talking with a man who had entered the building about fifteen minutes earlier. She hunkered down between garbage cans to wait him out.

It didn’t take long. Soon she saw and heard the creak of hinges and Neal stepped out with the other dark haired man dressed head-to-toe in biker leathers. He was flipping his helmet out from under his arm and using the straps to pull it down over his head.

“Are you sure we did the right thing?” Neal asked. Emma took a deep breath.

“Yes, it’s almost time.”

“But--”

“It was the only way.”

“You’ll keep me out of this?”

“He’ll never know you’re here.”

Emma frowned. _Who’s ‘he’?_ she thought. _Neal fucking left me to take the jail term for his stolen goods. All on this guy’s say-so?_ Emma watched Biker throw a leg over his bike and was glad for the tracking device she’d planted while he was upstairs with Neal. She could catch up to him without having to face Neal, reluctant to face him despite all her anger.

The motorcycle engine roared to life with a twist of Biker’s wrist. Emma watched Neal, nervously biting her lip as the engine’s roar diminished into the distance, finally swallowed up by the other street noise, before Neal himself turned away and reentered his apartment building.

Emma ran to her car, pulling the gray cover off and diving into the driver seat to speed after her quarry. She flipped a switch on the screen of a small device on her dash which then began rhythmically beeping. _Way to go, Vinnie,_ she praised her bailbonds buddy who had given her the tracker.

She kept the motorcycle within range, even as she hung back far enough to remain out of sight should he think he was being followed.

When he left the city, traveling on a highway northward, she began to get a little nervous. It was late. The traffic was thinning out the further they traveled. Soon she and Biker would be the only ones on the roadway. _How could she hide the fact she was following him?_

Nibbling her bottom lip nervously, Emma used a clump of cars coming onto the highway to maneuver past the motorcycle. She stayed ahead of him for at least a hundred miles, vigilantly watching in her rearview mirror to see if he turned down an off-ramp. He didn’t.

Until they got to Maine.

 

* * *

 

Emma scrambled to get off at the next exit, checking between her GPS and the tracker signal to wend her way backward, now stuck on winding, quiet country roads. She came to an intersection just as the biker sped through on the crossroad. Turning off her lights, she turned down the road to follow him.

She saw no signs of civilization, fields and forest filling the land in all directions. She rolled down her window to check for the motorcycle’s engine ahead, breathing a sigh of relief as she identified it over the frogs.

She slowed at the sight of a sign on the side of the road: Welcome to Storybrooke. _Quaint_ , Emma thought as she continued.

She passed a clock tower atop a boarded up library which proclaimed the time to be 8:15 and frowned. _Surely it had to be later than that? Hadn’t it been nearly 6 pm when she followed the biker out of New York City?_ But a glance at her car’s radio clock showed it was 8:15. _Hmm. Must’ve been driving a lot faster than I thought._

Emma heard laughter and saw lights, turning her gaze toward what appeared to be an open diner. A dark haired woman held an ice cream cone as a young boy, probably her son, held the door. Emma started to maneuver the car into a parallel parking space in front of the diner when she again heard the roar of the motorcycle engine.

Snapping her head around, Emma quickly identified the direction and pulled her wheels hard left.

Amid the squeal of her tires and those of the motorcycle, Emma heard a woman’s voice screaming, “Henry!”

The motorcycle slammed into her car’s hood skidding sideways and the man tumbled over the hood. With a crunch of leather and possibly bone, he landed on the asphalt inches from the boy who had stepped into the street.

“Henry!”

Blood roaring in her ears, Emma bolted out of her car, running around the hood to drop bodily onto the man on the pavement. “You almost hit that kid!” Emma screamed at him.

“You wrecked my bike!” the man shouted back, yanking off his helmet.

Emma planted her hands on the man’s shoulders, preventing him from rising while she pushed her knees into his kidneys.

“You’re both in _my_ town.”

The summer evening’s temperature seemed to drop several degrees with the woman’s words. Emma turned her gaze over her right shoulder and stared up at the brunette woman. The woman wore a gray dress, showing off a lot of leg -- _thank god for warm summers_ , Emma thought appreciatively. The other woman's hands fidgeted on the shoulders of an equally dark haired boy in a red and white baseball shirt. He was looking wide-eyed at them, and Emma saw his ice cream had tumbled to the ground. She frowned.

“Explain yourselves,” the brunette demanded.

 

* * *

 

There was another squeal of tires and Emma, who had been trying to figure out what to say, stuttered as she looked at the sheriff’s vehicle pulling to a halt a few dozen feet away.

“Madame Mayor,” the uniformed man said as he stepped from the patrol car.

“Thank you for your quick response, sheriff. Granny called you?”

“Ruby actually. She saw the whole thing. Are you and Henry all right?”

“Barely. These two almost hit us both.”

“Hey, I was parking!” Emma finally managed.

“I was minding my own business!” Biker retorted, though Emma thought she saw anxiety as his gaze skipped toward the brunette woman and her son.

“Speeding in Storybrooke is a serious offense,” the sheriff said, fingers hooking into either side of his utility belt buckle. Emma knew that maneuver all too well. “You’re both coming with me.”

“Emma Swan.” She stood, slowly, holding her hands out from her sides, palms toward the sheriff. “I have my ID. Inside jacket pocket. Big Apple Bail Bonds service.”

“Gun?” the sheriff asked.

“No.”

“Good.”

The biker on the ground got up, staggering, apparently favoring his right leg. The sheriff reached for him, and the man stumbled back, avoiding the contact.

“Who are you?” the sheriff asked.

“Just passing through.”

The sheriff frowned, and grabbed the man’s shoulder. “That’s not what I asked.”

The biker wrestled; the sheriff won, pulling out cuffs. The sharp clank of the cuffs on his hands behind his back seemed to finally drop the man’s fight to nil. His shoulders rounded.

“You,” the sheriff said to Emma, “front seat.”

Emma resisted the childish urge to stick out her tongue at the biker as he was shoved into the back seat of the sheriff’s vehicle. He glared at her. Well, she hadn’t wanted to make friends anyway, Emma chided the sudden flash of hurt that skittered through her chest.

“I’ll meet you at the station, sheriff,” the brunette woman stated. “I have to get Henry home first.”

“Of course, Madame Mayor.”

Emma watched in the cruiser’s outside rear view mirror until the boy and his mother, who was apparently also the town’s mayor, vanished over the small rise in the street.

The sheriff spoke just after Emma lost sight of the mother and son. “Is this guy one of your jumpers?” he asked, tossing a thumb toward the biker in the backseat.

“No clue who he is,” Emma answered honestly.

“But you were following him,” the sheriff said, and it wasn’t a guess.

“I don’t know him, but I’m certain he knows me.” Emma’s eyes narrowed at the biker. “Don’t you?”

“Why doesn’t anyone believe I was just passing through?”

“You’re a liar,” Emma retorted.

“What makes you think so? Is my nose growing?”

“Don’t be a wiseass, man, answer the woman,” the sheriff said, looking at the biker in his rearview mirror as he turned into the station parking lot.

“I know you followed me from New York.”

“You were talking to someone I was looking for.”

The man’s color did fade a bit at that revelation, but he remained silent as the sheriff pulled him from the back seat.

“Well, we’ll know soon enough who you are. When we book you into jail for reckless endangerment and run you through the computer.”

 

* * *

 

Emma watched the sheriff and mayor standing above her, talking almost as if she wasn’t even there.

“I should lock them both up,” the sheriff said. The man was practically a puppy at the mayor’s feet, even had the scruffy, scrappy look. Emma hadn’t seen many lawmen project an ‘aw, shucks’ attitude, but this guy...

“Whether intentional or an accident, Miss Swan’s actions did save Henry,” the mayor said. “I believe we can let her go.”

“Thank you, Madame Mayor,” Emma said, standing from the chair and edging out from between them. She glanced over at the cell still holding the man she had learned was August Booth. He’d given that name after the sheriff’s three attempts to run his prints came up empty. Emma’s inner lie detector had pinged, sure the name was false, but she’d have to wait to run his information through her own sources to find out his real identity.

Regina stood next to her. “You saved my son’s life. What do you want with Mr. Booth?”

“My life back,” Emma replied before she started for the door.

“Miss Swan?”

Emma stopped walking and looked back over her shoulder.

“Would you allow me to buy you a drink?”

“Not necessary.”

“You’ll need a place to stay until your vehicle is repaired. Let me at least take care of that?”

Emma was caught by surprising vulnerability in brown eyes. Well, her kid did almost get hit, she reasoned to herself, warmed by the idea of finally meeting a parent who gave a damn about their kid. “I pay my own way, but I’ll let you be my tour guide.”

“Novel,” the mayor replied with a smirk. She held out her hand. “I am Regina Mills.”

“Nice to meet you, Regina.” She grasped the woman’s hand steadily, mildly surprised by the soft strength behind the other woman’s grip before she dropped the contact. “Lead the way,” she added, stepping back and letting the brunette precede her from the building.

 

 

 


End file.
